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Comment by raphlinus | Hacker News Reader

This is a talk I've been working on for a while. It starts off motivating why you might want to write compute shaders (tl;dr you can exploit the impressive compute power of GPUs but portably), then explains the basics of how, including some sample code to help get people started.

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1dVSXORW6JurLUcx5UhE1...

Sample code: https://github.com/googlefonts/compute-shader-101

Feedback is welcome (please file issues against the open source repo), and AMA in this thread.

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This is fantastic. I worked on nvidia CUDA compiler from 2008-2012 so I am familiar with GPU architecture, but not the state of the art programming tools. You did a great job providing continuity between what I know and what I need to know now. I am really excited about WebGPU and IREE and have been following these projects closely. Thank you!

I found this talk incredibly useful as a newbie, and I’m looking forward to playing with the sample code.

I’ve been in a “don’t understand the GPU compute landscape well enough to decide what to get started on” limbo for a while, and this talk was exactly what I needed. Thanks!

Is the audience mainly folks in the scientific computing or academic world (aka folks that use CUDA mainly)? I went into it as a graphics engineer and started to get that sense haha (good job putting it together though)

I'm actually not 100% sure what audience would find this most compelling, it's something of an experiment. I'm personally motivated by 2D vector graphics rendering, but that's a pretty small world, and I wouldn't be surprised if the main applications for compute shaders ended up being scientific and machine learning.

Compute shaders are used heavily in the AAA games and film industry.

Just watched it now, quite interesting how you presented everything.

I will watch the talk later, but I think it is pretty obvious why to write compute shaders. :)

https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/

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